


Someone Else's Weakness

by Leni



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, background Merlin/Nymue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8732824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: "What you'll never have, little man," she tells him. "The strongest magic in the world."





	

Rumpelstiltskin's dreams are made of the ripped out pieces of the Dark One's memories - a dark-eyed boy calling him Papa, a blond wife dying in winter, aged parents looking on him (her?) proudly, and a thousand other moments of lives Rumpelstiltskin had never lived and places that are long burned and buried and forgotten by everyone else.

He brushes away everything that is not Baelfire. All else is weakness, past loves and hurts that would do nothing but weigh him down, old passions traded for glory and well worth the loss - all of them, except one.

"Who is this?" he asks, watching the young man who will turn deserts into fields and seeds into flower with nothing but a thought. The man laughs. Smiles. Looks around in sincere fondness.

He is a flicker of light, shining bright among the darkness of the Dark One's memory. But above all... he's _strong_.

"Who is this?" he insists, when none has the answer.

Zoso cannot tell him. Nor the one before him.

It is a woman's voice who whispers, sad and angry and disappointed and hopeless. "No one important," she says.

"I beg to differ, dearie," Rumpelstiltskin challenges, always attracted to power. Refuses to have his curiosity unsatisfied. "Tell me. Now."

She may be the first of their line. But he is the last. 

Where she fell under someone else’s power, he never intends to sink as low.

He is her better. As long as he holds the dagger, he is better than the dozens of Dark Ones combined.

" _Tell me._ "

"I... cared for him once," she says, and for a moment there's a glimpse of the young girl she must have been, before she became the first Dark One.

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs. "I'm not interested in _feelings_ , foolish girl. Tell me who he is-" _so I can find him, so I can know him, so I can use him... so his power can take me to Bae_ "-or is it _what_ he is?"

And Nymue turns to him, wicked glee making her eyes gleam. "What you'll never have, little man," she tells him. "The strongest magic in the world."

That makes him bark in derisive laughter. "I don't need 'true' love. I need answers!"

But Nymue disappears, and try as he might, he never finds out the man's name.

 

The End  
02/12/16

**Author's Note:**

> frenchroast007 prompted: Merlin/Rumple + Eye of the Tiger.
> 
> (yeah... the couple wasn't happening except for the weird obsession. I'm usually better at crack!pairings I promise!


End file.
